Subject to update

[petronia]

Watched MoB OAV3 raw, understood everything before and after Araki Murashige started spouting grammatically antiquated strings of onyomi, go me. Okay, this is going to be another one of those dumb "file under 'watched too much anime'" observations, but... does Haruie's fated lover person remind anyone else of Yukimura out of Prince of Tennis?

Or is it just me?

In other news, finished book 6, updated site. I really should go post the link at the lj comm - what's the point of keeping something like this if people don't use it? - but I'm too lazy and inclined to use the thing as a compendium of notes to aid my own memory. >_> But if you speak Chinese and want to know what the historical characters' name kanji are for Googling purposes... well, that's up.

And now I'm going to do something utterly unrelated. Like maybe take a nap.

(BTW, thanks for the uhh inventive poll responses, guys. XD;;)

Comments

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

I'm itching to correct the tsukumogami entry, since I've done more research on it since then. (And, I have a probable etymology now, actually.)

Oh, and mikkyou often means Shingon, too.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Sure, fire away. XD (I wouldn't even have touched the glossary, but Remi had entries with page references and nothing written...)

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

It's sometimes, at least, called the 付喪神記. At any rate, it seems that the tsukumo is probably the same tsukumo in 九十九髪, which comes from tsukumomo 次百.

While the definition is apparently first found in the tale, the tale is purportedly quoting some unidentified onmyodo text (which leads translators to misidentify the source, or at least so I've seen in back issues of Monumenta). Whether such an item is always harmful to humans is a bit up for debate, I think. And it's less gathering and burning than, instead of throwing them out, items are to be "cremated" during a memorial service, where they are thanked, in effect, for their long service to their owners. They still have these 供養 for items today: there's a shrine in Kamakura with a "brush grave"--they hold two services a year there, one for writing brushes, and one for art brushes. There's also someplace where there's an annual 供養 for dolls, I think.

(Considering the heavily Shingon-bias of the tale itself, I wonder if they started the whole 供養 thing, actually.... Hm....)

Oh, and if I can find a good source on dharani, I'll check on the rest of those. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

供養 is used in Chinese for... ancestral worship, I guess, though I've always had a niggling problem with that term. In Japanese too?

Will update. XD I didn't want to make it too long, since half of this isn't in the series itself, but now I think whotthehell, why am I trying to dumb it down. So. XD What I really need to do is type up all the actual infodumps in the novels relating to shrines etc., but I can't figure out how to organize it.

...Wait 'til I hit dem fightin' monks. XD XD

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

I might have to skip the fighting monks. XD Poor abused 悪僧, at least if the complaints against popular depictions by some professors are to be believed. XD

Yeah, it's the same in Japanese. I was a little "O_o?" at the term, but sensei was adamant. "It's 供養！" "... if you insist? o_O"

And yes, the info dumps--looking forward to them. XD So that I can look them over and go, aha! That's what's wrong with Japanese education these days!, if there's anything to go aha over. XD Have you thought about a wiki-style organization? (I think there might be some wikis out there that you can control editing access too. Yes, against the general guiding philosophy of wikis, but have you seen some of the stuff that gets put on them? XD)

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

weep, sorry 'bout that. manager came in; have to be alert.

but i'm not endorsing what he does? i think his mindset is WRONG, as in, he's not going to make a better world with his 'let all criminals die and elevate me to godhood' shtick, but i don't think he's going to create a particularly worse world, either? 'killing is bad', yes -- as in, it disrupts society, which as far as i can see is the main guiding principle behind human morality and ethics; our biological impulse is to see our species prosper and thrive, after all. but ha, i'm sure the other creatures of land and sea wouldn't be so gloomy at the prospect of a few less humans on the world, and who's to say that /their/ welfare doesn't take precedence? who's to judge?

and this is looking at it very abstractly, but it's fiction, it's fantasy, it's the playing ground of the abstract. i'm not suprised that people don't like raito because they think he's evil, and i perfectly respect their right to do so (even when i'm going >:EEEEE YOU SUCK, yes), buttt -- it's just not about good and evil, to me? basically what i'm saying is that i don't like him because he's evil, because i don't think he IS evil, because i think it's extremely hard to pin down a definition on that. (i think he's misguided and deluded, though, which are much more specific turn-offs.)

not arguing anyone's right to dislike him because of perceived ebilness, just stating my own stance. pointless, really, ahahaha.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

IMO it's not about whether or not the sum total of Raito's actions in the world improve or exacerbate human society (let alone the planet at large - environmentalism isn't one of his concerns, not sure whether I'm glad of that or not XD): it is, quite simply, about him being someone who would do what he does. Would you? Would I? Sure, there's an "absolute power corrupts" theme going on in the series, but nothing I see of Raito - with or without the memory of the Death Note - indicates to me that he has real emotional attachment to other people, or sees them as anything other than peons to be manipulated. Look at how he thinks of his family, or of the girls he dates (for various reasons relating to the DN, and I'm certain that without the DN he dates because there is social currency in being occasionally out with a girl, not because he cares about them or their feelings). At absolute best they're abstractions to him. I find him extremely interesting as a protagonist, but I can't sympathize with him, because the whole concept of "sympathy" is completely lost on that kind of person.

Not to mention, and this is not a minor consideration from my POV, everything unpleasant that happens to him in-series was roundly brought down on himself by himself. XD

Actually, for much of the same reasons I don't "sympathise" or "worry about" L either. Their frailies, such as they are, are not human frailties; they don't need my squishy human feelings to sustain them. Which is why out of the three, the one I "like" best is actually Misa. There, I said it. XD

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

oooh. okay, can go with that. XD because, i /do/ like characters who are emotionally detached; i do like their inhumanity. (disclaimer: as characters only, not in real life. XD) maybe not the complete lack of attachment raito exhibits, but i'm fascinated by characters who can disregard all other attachments in favor of one goal, one principle, even when it hurts? a number of the idealists and visionairies -- enjolras, for instance; t.e. lawrence, maybe? and i want to see them achieve those goals, if only to observe the angst afterwards, when there's nothing else left. XD

also, hey, i'd be kind of interested in seeing you do that favorite characters meme? <33333 although i think it's flawed -- top ten favorite characters, maybe; because, dude, my eyes glaze over just looking at all those rows and rows of names people on my flist have posted.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Going to bed (this is why I don't sleep: 14 hours last night and it doesn't do more for me than 6 >_<), but... isn't it blindly obvious who my favorite characters are in everything? I mean, come on. XD;;

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

...in a word, NO. I know you like Ryoma in PoT BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME (which, btw, is about as obvious as those lovelorn glances Tezuka throws at Fuji), Ginji in GB BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME, Schuldich in WK BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME...and you know what, that's it. I don't even know who you like more in MoB, and, let's face it, you've talked a LOT about MoB. XD I would've guessed L to be your favorite character in DN if you hadn't just proven otherwise. And, just looking these over, I have to say that if anyone can make sense of your 'type', I will bow down before them and call them master. *tezukaface*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

......Dude, it's really simple. My favorite character in everything is the favorite person of the character who "talks to me" the most. ._.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

More precisely - Misa is petty, deluded, often stupid and also rather lacking in empathy, but she has human feelings and attachments. She's in this basically because she feels grateful to Kira for avenging her, and is infatuated with Raito to the point of self-sacrifice. She's terribly annoying but she can be hurt, meaning that I have at least some emotional investment in not wanting to see her hurt, because I'm not a sadist. ^^; Whereas Raito simply cannot be hurt. He can be annoyed/angered, and he can be made to fear for his own life, but those are very different things.